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iiiiiiiiiii^SBiitii  ■ 


The  Present  and  Future 


HARVARD    COLLEGE 


AN    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA   SOCIETY  AT 
CAMBRIDGE,   MASS.,  JUNE  25,   1891 


BY 

WILLIAM  WATSON  GOODWIN, 

ELIOT   PROFESSOR   OF   GREEK   LITERATURE    IN    HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON,  U.S.A. 

GINN   &   COMPANY,   PUBLISHERS 

1891 


L^  7^ 


Copyright,  1891, 
By  GINN  &  COMPANY. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 


Typography  by  J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


Presswork  by  Gxnsj  &  Co.,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


;LI55 


THE    PRESENT    AND    FUTURE    OF 
HARVARD    COLLEGE. 


oitHo 


On  the  rare  occasions  when  our  beloved  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  departs  from  her  custom  of  going  abroad  for  a 
speaker  to  serve  her  at  her  annual  festival,  and  summons 
one  of  the  family  at  home  to  render  his  account  in  her 
presence,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  she  wants  to  know  how 
things  are  going  on  at  the  old  homestead,  what  we  are 
doing  here  for  the  great  interests  which  she  has  most  at 
heart,  and  especially  whether  she  is  likely  to  receive  that 
cordial  support  from  us  in  the  future  which  has  been  her 
dependence  in  the  past.  The  Phi  Beta  is  the  only  society 
whose  right  to  examine  the  condition  of  our  scholarship  is 
unquestioned.  She  is  the  only  societ}^  here  which  repre- 
sents college  scholarship  pure  and  simple.  All  her  chil- 
dren either  have  achieved  distinction  for  scholarship  in 
college,  or  have  shown  in  after  life  that  they  might  have 
achieved  it  if  they  had  wanted  to  or  if  the  college  had  let 
them  distinguish  themselves  in  their  own  way.  But, 
although  Phi  Beta  keeps  in  her  own  hands  the  wholesome 
power  of  correcting  the  mistakes  of  the  college  authorities 
when  they  either  overlook  genius  or  allow  it  to  blush  un- 
seen, she  still  accepts  without  question  the  body  of  recruits 

3 


.579517 


4  THE  PRESENT   AND   FUTURE 

who  are  sent  to  her  each  year  as  "  distinguished  scholars." 
She  is  therefore  deeply  interested  in  knowing  what  class 
of  men  now  come  to  her  stamped  as  "  distinguished  schol- 
ars," and  what  class  are  likely  to  come  with  the  same 
stamp  in  the  future. 

In  obedience  to  what  I  accept  as  a  direct  command  from 
Phi  Beta  herself,  I  shall  attempt  to  answer  two  (perhaps  I 
sliould  say  four)  questions  concerning  the  studies  and  the 
scholarship  of  Harvard  College,  to  which  she  has  a  right 
to  demand  as  plain  an  answer  as  can  be  given.  These 
questions  are  — 

I.  Where  are  we  now,  and  how  did  we  get  there  ? 

II.  Where  are  we  going,  and  how  do  we  expect  to  get 
there  ? 

I  am  well  aware  that  these  are  questions  to  which  almost 
as  many  ansAvers  might  be  given  as  there  are  scholars 
entitled  to  an  opinion,  and  that  nobody  can  hope  to  answer 
them  to  everybody's  satisfaction.  In  what  I  have  to  say, 
so  far  as  is  consistent  with  a  free  and  honest  answer,  I 
shall  attempt  to  avoid  subjects  which  are  now  matters 
of  controversy  within  the  college  walls. 

I.  What  is  the  nature  of  the  scholarship  which  Harvard 
College  now  stamps  with  her  authority  and  encourages 
by  her  honors  and  rewards,  including  membership  in 
this  society?  And  how  has  the  change  been  effected 
from  Avhat  was  called  scholarship  here  fifty  years  ago 
to  what  is  called  scholarship  here  to-day  ? 

It  may  be  necessary  to  remind  some  of  our  older  breth- 
ren, if  they  have  not  followed  closely  the  later  history 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  5 

of  the  College,  that,  although  the  ancient  rule  for  ad- 
mission to  the  Phi  Beta  remains  essentially  unchanged, 
and  a  fixed  number  (at  present  twenty-five)  of  the  highest 
scholars  of  each  class  are  elected  into  the  society,  the 
word  "  scholar  "  has  taken  a  new  and  wider  meaning  in 
these  later  years.  The  twenty-five  who  come  to  us  now 
have  distinguished  themselves  in  many  widely  different 
fields  of  study ;  probably  no  two  have  distinguished 
themselves  in  exactly  the  same  field;  and  perhaj)s  no 
one  has  distinguished  himself  in  any  field  which  even 
closely  resembles  that  in  which  our  oldest  brethren  gained 
their  college  honors.  For  example,  it  is  perfectly  possible 
(though  I  sincerely  hope  it  is  not  probable)  that  some 
whom  we  welcome  here  to-day  for  the  first  time  have 
never  studied  a  word  of  Greek  or  Latin,  a  line  of  Mathe- 
matics, or  a  ipage  of  Philosophy,  Logic,  or  History,  dur- 
ing their  undergraduate  course.  And  yet  these  were 
almost  the  only  studies  by  which  a  student  could  gain 
admission  to  our  society  fifty  years  ago.  This  fact,  how- 
ever startling  it  may  be  to  some  of  our  brethren,  is  yet 
one  of  the  common-places  of  the  day  to  those  of  us  who 
have  witnessed  the  slow  but  steady  steps  by  which  the 
revolution  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  been 
effected.  I  call  this  change  a  "revolution,"  for  it  has 
been  indeed  a  most  complete  revolution  both  in  the 
studies  and  in  the  whole  manner  of  studying  and  of 
teaching.  Whether  we  approve  the  change  or  not,  the 
fact  is  beyond  question,  that  the  Harvard  College  of  1891 
is  as  different  from  the   Harvard  CollcQe  of  1841  as  it 


6  THE   PRESENT  AMD   FUTURE 

is  from  an  English  College  or  a  French  Lycee.  The 
magnitude  of  the  change  is  seldom  appreciated  by  those 
wlio  watch  us  from  a  distance.  Even  our  most  intelligent 
and  friendly  critics,  when  they  tell  us  of  our  present 
weaknesses  and  short-comings  (of  which  alas  I  we  have 
only  too  many),  are  apt  to  suggest  remedies  which  could 
be  applied  onl}^  by  reversing  a  great  i)art  of  our  recent 
history.  They  tell  us  freely  how  to  improve  our 
machinery  and  where  to  oil  it ;  but  the  machinery  which 
they  are  talking  about  is  no  longer  here :  it  has  dis- 
appeared, never  to  return,  with  the  Harvard  College 
which  they  remember.  It  is  as  impossible  to  imagine  an 
undergraduate  of  to-day  in  the  college  of  fifty  years  ago, 
or  a  student  of  fifty  years  ago  suddenly  put  into  one  of 
our  present  college  classes,  as  to  imagine  the  crowd  of 
passengers  who  now  go  daily  from  Cambridge  to  Boston 
collected  in  the  Square  some  morning  to  secure  places 
in  the  old  stage-coach  which  once  made  its  single  journey 
to  the  city,  or  to  imagine  the  venerable  Dr.  Popkin 
stepping  calmly  out  of  his  door  on  the  West  Cambridge 
road,  and  waving  his  historic  umbrella  to  stop  an  electric 
car  as  it  goes  whizzing  by.  It  is  only  when  we  take 
into  account  this  complete  revolution  in  all  our  ideas 
and  all  our  ways,  that  such  general  statements  as  I  have 
just  made  become  intelligible :  without  this  the}"  are  one- 
sided and  misleading. 

This  great  change  in  the  College  is  chiefly  the  result 
of  the  elective  system  of  studies  which  was  introduced 
in  1867.     This  might  be  negatively  defined  as  the  direct 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  7 

opposite  of  the  required  system  which  it  superseded. 
It  gave  a  great,  even  an  unexpected,  stimulus  to  freedom 
of  every  kind  both  in  teaching  and  in  studying.  It  has 
led  to  the  reconsideration,  and  in  most  cases  to  the  re- 
vision, of  every  principle  of  education  which  was  formerly 
held  sacred  here ;  and  it  has  compelled  us  to  try  many 
bold  experiments,  the  end  of  which  is  not  yet  in  sight. 
It  is  no  wonder  that,  after  such  a  complete  overturn  of 
established  notions  and  such  a  general  introduction  of  new 
ideas,  we  are  not  yet,  after  a  quarter  of  a  century,  settled 
down  into  our  ancient  academic  quiet.  We  have  still 
much  to  do  to  assimilate  all  that  we  have  added  and 
are  still  adding  to  our  educational  material.  We  have 
still  experiments  to  make  which  have  never  been  tried; 
and  we  have  still  need  of  much  wisdom  to  teach  us  to 
reconcile  our  new  freedom  with  that  wholesome  restraint 
without  which  liberty  in  education,  as  in  everything  else, 
runs  into  license.  In  our  political  system  we  have  never 
yet  succeeded  in  harmonizing  perfectly  the  centrifugal 
and  centripetal  forces  of  freedom  and  restraint.  After 
more  than  a  century  neither  France  nor  the  rest  of  Europe 
has  yet  digested  the  French  Revolution.  Why  should 
we  be  expected  to  have  already  recovered  from  the  revo- 
lution we  have  passed  through,  in  all  our  theory  and 
practice  of  college  education,  and  to  be  quietly  at  rest  ? 

The  elective  system,  however,  is  not  responsible  for  all 
the  changes  which  strike  an  old  graduate  most  forcibly : 
for  example,  for  the  abolition  of  the  old  rules  concerning 
attendance  at  literary  exercises.     An  elective  system  in 


8  THE   PKESENT   AND    FUTURE 

itself  permits  no  greater  irregularity  in  attendance  than  a 
required  system.  On  the  contrary,  when  a  student  has 
chosen  his  own  courses  of  study,  the  obligation  to  devote 
himself  to  them  should  be  more  binding  and  should  be 
enforced  with  greater  strictness  than  when  they  were 
chosen  for  him.  Indeed,  after  many  experiments,  we  are 
at  last  indebted  to  the  elective  system  itself  for  the  present 
principle,  by  which  any  instructor  can  exclude  from  his 
class,  with  the  Dean's  consent,  at  any  time  in  the  year,  a 
student  whose  performance  of  work  is  not  satisfactory  to 
him,  so  that  the  student  cannot  count  the  course  towards 
his  degree.  This  somewhat  homoeopathic  remedy  prom- 
ises to  be  a  far  more  effective  means  of  securing  satisfac- 
tory work  and  regularity  than  the  old  absence-list,  with  its 
machinery  of  deductions,  admonitions,  and  suspensions. 

I  shall  not  presume  to  give  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  an 
account  of  the  elective  system  in  its  details.  But  I  shall 
venture  on  what  may  be  thought  a  still  greater  presump- 
tion,—  an  account  of  my  own  views  of  the  elective  princi- 
ple from  the  time  when  I  began  to  teach  in  the  College,  ten 
years  before  the  present  system  was  proposed.  I  do  this, 
not  so  much  by  way  of  offering  my  own  experience  as  a 
Carian's  corpus  vile  for  dissection,  as  in  the  hope  that  some 
interest  may  be  felt  in  the  view  with  which  this  principle 
has  been  regarded  during  thirty-five  years  by  a  teacher  of 
the  Classics,  who  has  through  that  whole  period  never 
changed  his  opinion  of  the  importance  of  classical  study  as 
a  basis  of  literary  culture.  If  I  have  not  looked  at  the 
question  solely  or  chiefly  from  the  classical  point  of  view, 


OF    HARVAKD   COLLEGE.  9 

and  considered  mainly  what  seemed  to  be  for  the  interest 
of  my  own  department,  it  is  because  I  have  never  believed 
that  classical  study  has  any  interest  of  any  kind  for  or 
against  the  elective  system,  distinct  from  that  of  other 
departments  of  learning. 

The  required  system  was  in  its  typical  perfection  when 
I  came  here  in  1856  as  tutor  in  Greek  and  Latin.  The 
required  Greek  and  Latin  were  then  in  possession  of  about 
two-fifths  of  each  student's  time.  Next  to  these  came  the 
]\lathematics ;  and  the  other  required  studies  were  Rhet- 
oric and  English  Composition,  Logic,  History,  Philosophy, 
Ethics,  Physics,  Chemistry,  and  a  little  Botany.  Each 
Junior  and  Senior  took  one  elective  study.  This  repre- 
sented what  the  majority  of  the  Faculty  then  approved,  or 
agreed  to  approve,  as  the  best  course  of  college  study  for 
the  average  student.  The  Faculty  now  does  not  insist  on 
a  single  one  of  these  studies  as  an  essential  part  of  a  col- 
lege education,  except  a  small  part  of  the  Rhetoric  and 
some  English  Composition.  This  change  does  not  indi- 
cate any  sudden  or  even  gradual  conversion  of  any  large 
number  of  scholars  as  to  the  value  of  the  old  studies.  It 
does  remind  us,  however,  of  the  radical  change  which  the 
new  studies  introduced  by  the  elective  system  have  made 
in  the  constitution  of  the  Faculty.  When  I  graduated 
forty  years  ago,  there  were  only  six  professors  in  the  Col- 
lege Faculty;  these  were  Edward  T.  Channing  (whose 
resignation  took  effect  that  very  day),  James  Walker, 
Cornelius  C.  Felton,  Benjamin  Peirce,  Henry  W.  Longfel- 
low, and  Joseph  Lovering.     The  Faculty  of  1856  had  only 


10  THE   PRESENT    AND   FUTURE 

seven  professors.  There  are  fifty-seven  professors  and 
assistant  professors  in  the  present  Faculty  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  wliich  consists  of  al)Out  seventy  members.  As  to 
myself,  I  can  say  that,  without  changing  in  the  least  my 
opinion  as  to  the  a1)soluto  oi-  the  relative  value  of  the  Clas- 
sics in  literary  education,  I  have  steadily  favored  the 
change  b}-  which  Greek  and  Latin  have  been  made  elective 
after  the  Freshman  year,  and  I  have  done  this  in  what  I 
have  believed  to  be  the  best  interests  of  classical  scholar- 
ship as  well  as  those  of  all  other  scholarship.  As  to  the 
Freshman  year,  I  have  always  thought  that  the  elementary 
studies  once  required  there  belong  to  schools,  and  ought 
never  to  be  taken  into  account  in  permanent  plans  of  col- 
lege stud}'. 

The  first  thing  that  struck  me  when  I  began  to  teach 
here  in  1856  was  what  I  had  felt  as  a  grievance  as 
an  undergraduate,  that  under  the  required  system  the 
standard  of  scholarship  in  each  study  was  set,  not  by 
what  the  best  and  most  enthusiastic  scholars  could  do, 
but  b}'  what  could  reasonably  be  expected  of  the  ordinary 
student  of  good  intentions.  This  threw  a  depressing 
chill  upon  all  wdio  felt  themselves  able  to  do  twice  as 
much  work  as  the  class  was  doing,  and  almost  everybody 
contented  himself  with  the  required  mediocrity.  During 
the  recitation  hour,  in  most  studies,  the  better  scholars 
were  compelled  to  listen  the  greater  part  of  the  time 
to  the  talk  of  classmates  who  knew  less  than  them- 
selves and  who  seldom  said  anything  of  interest  or  value. 
The  obvious  plan  of  dividing   a  class   according  to   pro- 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  11 

ficiency  haJ  then  few  advocates  in  the  Faculty.  President 
Walker  told  me  quite  severely,  when  I  ventured  to 
suggest  it  soon  after  my  appointment,  that  it  was  opposed 
to  the  established  policy  of  the  College.  This  plan  of 
division,  which  prevailed  in  President  Quincy's  time, 
and  was  abai^doned  at  the  end  of  President  Everett's 
administration  in  1849,  was  naturally  unpopular  with 
the  lower  scholars,  and  still  more  so  with  their  parents, 
inasmuch  as  the  distinction  was  based  on  a  most  obvious 
distinction  in  fact.  And  most  teachers  seem  to  have 
felt  that  the  appalling  horror  of  facing  an  unwilling 
class  composed  entirely  of  the  dull,  the  indifferent,  and 
the  lazy,  more  than  balanced  the  pleasure  of  teaching  all 
the  good  scholars  by  themselves.  The  result  was  that 
nothing  worthy  of  the  name  of  high  scholarship  could 
he  expected  as  a  right  in  any  department  to  which  this 
system  was  applied,  and  the  highest  rank  was  often 
by  necessity  awarded  to  mere  mediocrity. 

I  do  not  forget  that  under  this  old  system  of  instruc- 
tion many  men  left  these  halls  inspireci  with  a  genuine 
love  of  classical  learning,  which  has  been  a  powerful 
influence  for  good  to  themselves  and  to  others.  Some 
of  these  are  still  with  us ;  and  we  look  up  to  them 
with  admiration  and  respect,  as  living  witnesses  of  a 
time  when  the  demands  of  the  College  were  small,  but 
personal  enthusiasm  was  great,  when  (as  Mr.  Emerson 
said  to  me  twenty-five  years  ago,  comparing  later  times 
unfavorably  with  his  own)  "  the  class  thought  nothing 
of  a  man  who  did  not  have  an  enthusiasm  for  something,'* 


12  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

and  when  the  academic  repose  of  the  place  made  it 
easy  to  cultivate  learning  for  learning's  sake.  But  I 
think  we  should  be  in  error  if  we  credited  this  older 
scholarship  to  any  high  standard  which  was  demanded 
or  enforced  l^y  the  College  itself.  And  I  am  reminded 
by  names  with  which  many  of  us  are  familiar,  —  indeed, 
by  faces  which  I  see  before  me  now,  —  that  this  classical 
scholarship  was  shared  by  some  whom  the  college  in- 
struction never  reached,  and  that  the  same  generation 
could  boast  a  goodly  array  of  learned  women  among 
its  scholars,  who  caught  the  same  enthusiasm  for  classic 
learning  which  inspired  their  brothers  or  their  fathers 
here. 

But  it  was  already  obvious  thirty-five  years  ago  that 
the  large  share  of  college  time  then  given  to  the  Classics 
and  the  Mathematics  could  not  be  maintained,  even 
under  a  strictly  required  system.  New  subjects  were 
pressing  hard  for  admission,  and  everj-  year  some  sacrifice 
was  demanded  of  the  old  studies  to  make  place  for 
some  new  comer.  In  this  waj'  alone,  before  any  step 
whatever  had  been  taken  towards  an  elective  system, 
the  amount  of  time  given  to  classical  studies  had  been 
greatly  cut  down.  The  Greek,  Latin,  and  Ancient 
History  in  the  Freshman  year,  for  example,  had  thus 
been  reduced  from  twelve  hours  a  week  to  six,  and 
this  was  felt  to  be  only  a  beginning.  At  the  same  time 
the  introduction  of  written  examinations  increased  the 
efficiency  of  each  department,  and  made  it  less  and  less 
possible  for  students  to  give  extra  time  to  studies  which 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  13 

they  preferred,  as  the  requirements  were  more  severely 
enforced  in  all.  This  equable  pressure  did  much,  I 
think,  to  repress  the  older  enthusiasm  of  the  place,  and 
to  encourage  what  was  once  (but  is,  I  trust,  no  longer) 
known  as  "  Harvard  indifference."  Thus  even  the 
moderate  speeial  scholarship  which  the  older  system 
secured  was  undermined  on  two  sides,  and  every  yeav 
was  making  this  worse.  It  was  really  the  fact,  though 
it  sounds  like  a  paradox,  that  raising  the  standard  of 
scholarship  under  the  required  system  actually  impeded 
scholarship.  At  this  period  a  cry  of  "  overwork "  was 
raised,  I  think  for  the  last  time ;  and  the  Corporation 
actually  sent  a  committee  to  the  College  to  investigate 
this  grievance.  This  committee  of  investigation  "builded 
better  than  it  knew  " ;  and,  though  sent  for  an  entirely 
different  purpose,  it  opened  the  discussion  which  led 
within  a  year  to  the  present  elective  sj^stem. 

It  had  long  been  felt  by  many  to  whom  this  state  of 
things  seemed  intolerable,  —  by  none  more  keenl}^  than 
by  the  teachers  of  the  Classics  and  the  Mathematics,  who 
were  commonly  l^elieved  to  hold  a  monopoly  under  the 
required  system,  —  that  the  only  escape  from  the  increas- 
ing evils  which  surrounded  us  was  to  be  found  in  a  plan 
by  which  no  student  should  be  required  to  take  all  studies, 
but  every  student  should  be  allowed  to  give  much  more 
time  and  attention  to  certain  branches  which  he  elected 
than  he  could  give  to  any  of  his  studies  before.  It  was 
clearly  recognized  that  no  partial  and  restricted  scheme 
of  elective  study  could  help  high  scholarship.     As  Presi- 


14  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

dent  Walker  said  in  1867  :  "  Who  supposes  that  the  mere 
right  of  selection  among  a  crowd  of  elementary  studies  will 
make  a  university  ?  "  This  evil  was  carefully  avoided  in 
the  plan  adopted  in  1867,  which  was  thus  distinguished 
from  all  our  previous  elective  systems.  Fortunately  the 
increasing  resources  of  the  College  enabled  each  depart- 
ment to  offer  a  greater  variety  of  courses  each  year  to 
meet  new  demands.  To  take  an  illustration  from  the 
department  with  which  I  am  most  familiar,  —  where  for- 
merly one  regular  course  in  Greek  and  one  in  Latin  were 
assigned  to  each  of  the  four  classes,  now  twenty-one  full 
courses  and  nineteen  half  courses  of  various  grades  are 
offered  to  all  who  are  competent  to  take  them.  New 
courses  called  for  new  teachers.  In  1856,  when  Greek 
and  Latin  were  both  required  until  the  end  of  the  Junior 
year,  all  the  work  in  them  was  done  by  five  teachers. 
Now,  when  both  are  entirely  elective  from  the  beginning, 
eleven  or  twelve  teachers  are  fully  employed.  It  need 
hardly  be  said  that  the  standard  of  scholarship  in  every 
department  was  at  once  raised  by  this  reform.  It  sprang 
up  of  itself  the  moment  the  old  pressure  was  taken  off. 
No  teacher  was  now  expected  to  set  a  standard  for  his 
best  scholars  which  every  faithful  dunce  could  reach. 
The  "  faithful  dunce "  was  now  always  supposed  to  be 
"  somewhere  else  " ;  the  standard  of  scholarship  ignored 
him  completely,  and  his  day  of  power  was  over.  I  cannot 
emphasize  too  strongly  that  the  chief  merit  of  the  present 
elective  system  is  not  that  it  lets  students  study  what 
they  like  and  avoid  what  they  dislike,  but  that  it  opens 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  15 

to  all  a  higher  and  wider  range  of  study  in  every  field ; 
in  short,  it  has  made  really  high  scholarship  possible. 

As  time  went  on,  the  development  of  higher  instruction 
brought  about  a  most  gratifying,  though  somewhat  un- 
expected, result.  Some  of  the  courses  offered  in  various 
departments  for  the  special  benefit  of  undergraduates 
who  intended  to  be  teachers  appeared  better  suited  to  the 
education  of  professional  scholars  than  to  ordinary  col- 
lege study.  It  was  not  long  before  these  courses  were 
greatly  increased  in  number,  and  a  list  of  Graduate  Studies 
was  then  offered  to  our  own  graduates  and  to  those  of 
other  colleges,  as  w^ell  as  to  our  most  competent  under- 
graduates. Thus,  from  small  and  modest  beginnings,  and 
with  many  serious  gaps  in  its  courses  of  instruction,  arose 
the  Graduate  Department,  to  which  was  intrusted  the 
instruction  of  candidates  for  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
and  for  the  newly  established  degrees  of  Doctor  of  Phil- 
osophy and  Doctor  of  Science.  About  a  year  ago  this 
somewhat  informal  department  was  organized  into  the 
present  Graduate  School,  co-ordinate  with  the  professional 
schools  of  Theology,  Law,  and  Medicine,  and  was  placed 
under  the  control  of  the  new  Faculty  of  Arts  and 
Sciences.  It  is  felt  more  and  more  strongly  every  year 
that  the  moderate  amount  of  knowledge  which  we  now 
demand,  or  the  greatest  which  we  can  ever  hope  to  de- 
mand, for  the  Bachelor's  degree  can  no  longer  be  the  sum 
total  of  education  for  those  who  are  to  make  teaching 
their  profession,  to  devote  themselves  to  any  literary  or 
scientific  pursuit,  to  the  important  profession  of  journal- 


16  THE   PRESENT    AND    FUTURE 

ism,  or  to  public  life.  The  enthusiasm  with  which  our 
best  universities  are  now  organizing  studies  for  Baclielors 
of  Arts,  and  the  increasing  resort  of  graduates  to  these 
centres  of  learning,  show  the  power  of  this  movement 
towards  true  university  education,  a  power  which  is  just 
beginning  to  be  felt.  We  owe  special  gratitude  to  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University  at  Baltimore,  which  called 
public  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  movement  by 
its  bold  experiment  of  establishing  its  Graduate  School 
before  any  other  department  was  organized  and  by  de- 
voting its  chief  energies  to  this  from  the  beginning.  In 
these  new  Graduate  Schools  we  see  the  brightest  hope  for 
the  future  American  university. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  elective  system  as  an 
unmitigated  blessing  to  the  College.  I  cannot  deny  that 
it  has  its  evils,  and  none  understand  these  so  well  as  those 
who  know  the  system  best.  We  do  not  pretend  that  we 
have  found  and  developed  a  perfect  plan  of  college  study. 
I  regret  as  much  as  anybody  the  gaps  which  the  elective 
system  often  leaves,  or  allows  careless  students  to  leave, 
in  their  education.  I  do  not  like  to  see  young  men  go  out 
from  college  stamped  with  the  highest  marks  of  honor, 
who  have  never  read  a  line  of  the  Iliad,  who  do  not  know 
what  a  syllogism  is,  or  the  difference  between  a  planet 
and  a  fixed  star.  But  when  I  look  at  these  defects  of  our 
system,  and  then  turn  to  the  wonderful  advance  in  scholar- 
ship which  we  owe  to  this  same  system,  and  especially 
when  I  think  how  hopeless  even  our  present  scholarship 
seemed  to  us  all  twenty-five  years  ago,  I  cannot  feel  that 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  17 

we  have  made  a  mistake  in  securing  this  permanent  gain, 
and  in  establishing  our  Graduate  School  as  a  custodian  of 
our  higher  scholarship,  even  if  we  have  temporarily  sacri- 
ficed some  of  the  lesser  interests  of  learning.  I  say 
"  temporarily,"  because  I  believe  that  a  corrective  will  be 
found  in  the  near  future  for  much  (if  not  all)  of  this  evil. 
And  I  cannot  but  feel  that  the  interests  which  we  now 
sacrifice  are  the  lesser  interests  of  learning ;  for  there  is 
no  necessity  or  inducement  under  our  present  system  for 
anybody  to  exclude  from  his  studies  either  Homer,  Logic, 
or  the  elements  of  Astronomy.  When  we  look  on  this 
place  as  a  seat  of  learning,  it  is  surely  a  nobler  duty  to 
open  to  everybody  the  highest  instruction  in  every  depart- 
ment than  to  prevent  a  few  foolish  persons  from  neglect- 
ing even  important  elementary  branches. 

I  liave  never  advocated  the  elective  system  on  the 
ground  that  it  enables  the  idle,  the  lazy,  and  the  indif- 
ferent to  select  studies  which  are  better  suited  to  what 
they  are  pleased  to  call  their  "  tastes."  Let  it  be  under- 
stood that  I  do  not  include  in  these  classes  any  who  are 
reclaimed  from  idleness  and  indifference  by  a  wider  range 
of  study:  these  accessions  to  the  rank  of  scholars  T  warmly 
welcome,  though  I  think  their  number  is  apt  to  be  over- 
rated. But  the  great  majority  of  those  who  come  here 
without  literar}^  tastes  and  without  interest  in  phj^sical  or 
natural  science  are  no  better  off  than  they  were  before. 
The  elective  system  is  no  gain  to  them.  They  are  a  great 
gain  to  the  higher  scholarship  which  the  elective  sj'stem 
fosters,  like  the  pins  in  the  boy's  composition  which  "saved 


18  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTUKE 

tlic  lives  of  many  people  by  their  not  swallowing  them," 
They  have  done  an  incalculable  service  to  the  higher  learn- 
ing by  ceasing  to  obstruct  it;  indeed,  their  absence  has 
made  the  higher  learning  for  the  first  time  possible.  But 
on  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  elective  system  is  a 
bad  thing  for  them  ;  thougli  I  cannot  think  it  a  very  impor- 
tant question  for  a  university,  viewed  as  a  seat  of  learning, 
whether  it  is  bad  for  them  or  not.  What  they  most  need 
is,  not  to  be  allowed  to  do  some  easy  thing  toAvards  which 
they  feel  less  repugnance  than  towards  something  else,  but 
rather  to  be  compelled  to  do  something  which  they  cannot 
do  without  at  least  the  highest  mental  effort  of  which  they 
are  capable.  It  is  the  smallest  of  the  duties  of  a  university, 
however,  to  minister  to  this  want.  I  have  no  objection  to 
letting  these  summer  residents  occupy  their  cottages  on 
our  grounds,  and  I  rejoice  whenever  (to  use  President 
Quincy's  phrase)  they  "rub  a  little  whitewash  from  the 
college  walls " ;  I  object  only  to  wasting  our  precious 
resources  in  providing  them  special  entertainment,  and  I 
do  not  believe  in  smearing  our  walls  with  cheaper  white- 
wash, that  can  be  rubbed  off  with  less  friction  than  could 
the  more  solid  pigment  which  covered  the  walls  of  Presi- 
dent Quincy's  day.  If  any  one  should  blame  us  for  unduly 
neg:lecting  the  interests  of  those  "  students "  who  come 
here  to  avoid  study,  while  I  should  not  admit  the  truth  of 
the  charge,  I  should  deem  it  a  satisfactory  answer,  that  if 
Harvard  College  should  be  managed  for  half  a  century  in 
the  interest  of  its  best  scholars,  it  would  be  no  more  than 
a  fair  compensation  for  the  long  period  in  which  a  great 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  19 

part  of  its  energy  was  spent  in  a  vain  attempt  to  bring  the 
lower  half  of  each  class  up  to  a  disreputable  minimum, 
while  the  real  scholars  were  left  to  themselves. 

But,  whatever  may  be  the  defects  of  our  present  plan, 
it  is  evident  that  an  elective  system  is  the  only  possible 
one  here  now.  If  we  were  compelled  to  return  to  a 
required  system,  we  should  have  not  less  than  fifteen  or 
sixteen  studies,  all  claiming  a  share  of  the  student's  tin)e. 
All  higher  studies  would  disappear,  and  classes  of  three 
hundred  and  three  hundred  and  sixty-six  would  be  taught 
chiefly  what  they  ought  to  have  learnt  at  school  hy  such 
instructors  as  could  be  induced  to  repeat  the  same  lessons 
wearily  to  ten  or  twelve  sections.  But  nobody  seriously 
thinks  of  this  as  a  possibility.  The  College  could  no  more 
be  crowded  into  the  old  required  system  than  a  man  could 
be  squeezed  into  the  clothes  which  he  wore  as  a  boy.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Faculty  were  to  try  to  lay  out  a 
course  of  elective  study  which  they  could  recommend  to 
all  who  had  no  reason  for  preferring  any  other  course,  one 
which  should  represent  what  might  be  called  a  "  well- 
rounded  "  plan  of  academic  study,  almost  as  many  plans 
would  be  proposed  as  there  were  members  willing  to 
undertake  the  task,  while  many  would  think  such  an 
attempt  inexpedient  or  useless.  Now  this  does  not  imply 
any  diseased  condition  of  our  Faculty ;  it  would  probabl}' 
be  the  same  with  any  body  of  seventy  professional  teachers 
similarly  congregated.  It  fairly  represents  the  breaking- 
up  of  all  the  old  opinions  as  to  what  should  constitute  a 
(so-called)  liberal  education,  which  recent  years  have  wit- 


20  THE   niKSENT    AND    FUTURE 

nessed.  I  regret  this  breaking-up  as  nuich  as  some 
others  rejoice  in  it.  But,  however  we  feel  about  it,  we 
must  accept  it  for  the  present  as  a  most  stubborn  fact. 
I  believe  that  the  remedy  will  come  in  time  from  much- 
needed  reforms  in  school  education.  I  believe  that  the 
true  reason  why  we  tind  it  so  hard  to  advise  young 
men  who  come  to  us  for  help  is,  that  they  have  not 
learnt  enousrh  at  school.  In  President  Walker's  words, 
"  they  have  not  as  yet  completed  the  general  and  prelimi- 
nary studies  which  are  necessary  to  a  liberal  education ; 
and  therefore  for  them  the  time  has  not  come  to  talk 
about  dropping  one  study  and  taking  up  another."  They 
often  cannot  take  what  we  should  like  to  advise  them  to 
study,  because  they  have  no  knowledge  of  some  elemen- 
tary subject  which  they  need  and  should  have  learnt  at 
school,  but  w^hich  we  cannot  advise  them  to  study  in  col- 
lege. Our  trouble  is,  that  our  machinery  is  better  than 
much  of  our  material.  But  this  is  far  better  than  the 
reverse ;  indeed,  it  is  only  by  going  through  this  stage 
that  we  can  hope  to  get  better  material.  I  have  no  anxiety 
about  the  final  result,  though  this  may  be  still  in  the  dim 
distance.  I  am  sure  that  the  future  has  in  store  a  solution 
of  this  problem  and  of  many  other  far  more  perplexing 
problems  ;  but  we  need  wisdom  and  careful  thought ;  and 
above  all  we  need  patience. 

II.  I  have  thus  tried  to  answer  my  first  question,  and 
to  show  the  present  state  of  studies  in  Harvard  College 
and  explain  how  we  have  come  to  this  new  condition  dur- 
ing the  past  quarter  of  a  century.     I  am  on  more  danger- 


OF   HARVAIID   COLLEGE.  21 

ous  ground  in  attempting  to  answer  my  second  ques- 
tion, —  To  what  future  are  we  tending,  and  by  what  steps 
is  this  future  to  be  reached  ?  Those  of  us  who  can  imagine 
ourselves  in  1857  trying  to  predict  the  state  of  the  College 
in  1891  can  best  appreciate  the  value  of  this  year's  X3redic- 
tions  of  what  we  shall  have  become  in  1925. 

But  of  one  thing  I  feel  very  sure.  We  are  not  to  have 
any  type  of  European  university  established  here.  It  has 
sometimes  occurred  to  me  in  the  past  that  we  might  be 
in  more  danger  from  the  opposite  tendency,  a  prejudice 
against  foreign  influences.  Nothing  rouses  a  stronger 
opposition  to  any  scheme  for  university  reform  than  the 
charge  that  it  is  foreign.  We  Americans  are  the  most 
patriotic  people  in  the  world,  and  we  hug  our  national 
weaknesses  with  the  most  ardent  affection.  If  anybody 
wanted  to  make  a  foreign  plan  of  education  prevail  here, 
he  would  have  little  chance  of  success  unless  he  could 
array  it  in  a  good  American  dress  and  make  people  think 
it  was  a  natural  growth  of  our  own  academic  soil.  Our 
previous  history  has  shown  remarkable  independence  in 
borrowing  single  academic  features  from  both  England  and 
Germany  and  in  rejecting  others.  It  might  be  hard  to 
maintain  that  we  have  always  borrowed  the  best  and 
rejected  the  worst ;  but  we  have  certainly  never  borrowed 
in  any  servile  spirit  or  in  any  wholesale  fashion.  I  have 
sometimes  felt  that  Ave  have  occasionally  made  mistakes 
in  trying  to  force  German  grafts  to  grow  on  our  old  English 
stock,  and  perhaps  I  have  been  as  great  an  offender  here 
as  any  one.     Harvard  began  as  an  English  college  of  the 


22         THE  presp:nt  and  future 

Cambridge  type,  and  it  remained  essentially  an  English 
college  down  to  the  early  years  of  this  century.  This 
appears  in  the  tutorial  nature  of  its  teaching  and  in  all  its 
traditions.  Before  1810  there  were  only  two  professor- 
ships which  belonged  to  the  College  proper,  —  the  two 
founded  by  Thomas  Hollis  in  Divinity  and  in  Mathe- 
matics and  Natural  Philosophy.  During  the  last  seventy- 
five  years  the  traditions  of  the  original  English  college 
have  gradually  given  way  to  the  direct  influence  of  the 
German  university,  and  our  chief  reforms  in  teaching  and 
in  organization  have  been  inspired  from  Gottingen  and 
Berlin  rather  than  from  Cambridge  and  Oxford.  In  the 
establishment  of  our  schools  of  Theology,  Law,  and  Medi- 
cine, which  largely  follow  German  precedents,  we  made 
the  greatest  departure  from  our  English  antecedents. 
These  three  professional  schools  have  fairly  represented 
three  of  the  Faculties  of  the  German  university ;  but  our 
old  English  college,  even  with  its  latest  improvements, 
has  in  no  sense  represented  the  fourth,  the  Faculty  of 
Philosoj)hy,  or  indeed  anything  which  is  recognized  in 
German  education.  It  has  always  had  the  traditional  free- 
dom of  an  English  college,  and  none  of  the  smaller  dis- 
cipline of  a  German  gymnasium ;  but  it  has  never  had  any 
of  the  very  different  freedom  of  a  German  university.  By 
retaining  the  Bachelor's  degree  as  the  necessary  goal 
toward  which  all  must  strive,  a  degree  which  it  is  no 
honor  to  gain  but  a  disgrace  to  lose,  it  assumes  a  responsi- 
bility for  the  scholarship  of  each  student,  which  is  purely 
an  English  tradition  and  wholly  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  a 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  23 

German  university.  But  at  last  we  see  the  real  germ  of  a 
Faculty  of  Philosophy  in  our  new  Graduate  School,  with 
its  perfect  freedom  both  in  teaching  and  in  learning.  It 
has  no  degree  in  course  for  which  all  students  are  candi- 
dates, and  consequently  no  paternal  supervision  of  each 
student's  daily  work.  Its  degrees  are  given  only  to  those 
who  earn  them  by  passing  special  examinations  on  special 
work.  We  all  welcome  this  new  accession  with  pride  and 
joy,  and  we  feel  that  in  its  future  lies  much  of  the  future 
power  of  the  university.  The  most  important  work  of 
this  school,  as  it  develops  its  resources  and  expands  its 
departments,  will  be  (as  I  have  said)  the  education  of 
those  who  are  to  be  teachers  or  writers  or  who  are  to  enter 
public  life.  The  demands  of  our  country  for  professional 
education  for  all  these  is  rapidly  growing,  and  especially 
the  advancing  standard  of  the  teacher's  profession  requires 
more  and  more  strictly  that  every  teacher  shall  be  able  (as 
Plato  expresses  it)  "  to  show  his  teacher  and  the  time  he 
spent  in  learning."  The  Graduate  School  must  answer 
these  new  calls,  and  it  must  take  its  place  with  the  other 
professional  schools  as  a  home  of  advanced  learning,  where 
the  best  and  the  highest  which  each  department  can  offer 
will  be  found,  and  where  students  will  learn  also  (what  is 
much  more  important)  the  scientific  methods  of  investiga- 
tion by  which  all  sciences  have  been  advanced,  that  they 
may  be  leaders,  not  followers,  in  the  great  march  of  edu- 
cation. 

But  this  future  prospect,  so  full  of  promise  and  hope, 
suggests  to  some   of   our  friends  the  anxious    question : 


24  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

Will  there  be  any  place  in  the  new  university  for  the 
old  college?  Will  not  its  work  be  gradually  absorbed 
by  the  Graduate  School  above  and  the  High  Schools  below, 
and  will  not  the  university  then  devote  her  strength 
entirely  to  professional  training  in  Theology,  Law,  Medi- 
cine, and  the  Arts  and  Sciences?  And  after  another 
half  century  will  not  the  old  Harvard  College  have  lost 
its  usefulness  and  have  become  extinct  ? 

This  can  never  be,  until  the  university  is  ready  to 
renounce  for  the  future  what  has  been  her  chief  service 
in  the  past,  and  to  abandon  her  position  as  a  home  of 
liberal  culture.  But  I  cannot  allow  mj^self  to  use  this 
much-abused  phrase  "  liberal  culture  "  here  without  stop- 
ping to  explain  what  I  mean  by  liberal  study  and  to 
what  I  understand  it  to  be  opposed.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say,  that  very  few  are  substantially  agreed  as  to  the 
meaning  of  this  time-honored  title,  while  every  discussion 
of  educational  problems  seems  soberly  to  assume  that 
some  very  definite  idea  is  attached  to  it.  We  gain  little 
by  going  back  to  the  seven  artes  liberates,  with  their 
Triviu7n  of  Grammar,  Rhetoric,  and  Logic,  and  their 
Quadrivium  of  Arithmetic,  Music,  Geometry,  and  Astron- 
omy, into  which  the  Greek  and  Roman  education  finally 
crystallized,  and  which  ruled  the  universities  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  We  must  remember  that  "Grammar"  here 
originally  meant  "reading  and  writing"  (^ypafi/iariK^]  being 
the  knowledge  of  ypafjifMara,  letters^,  and  the  term  is  older 
than  anything  which  is  now  known  as  Grammar.  These 
seven    arts   no   longer  represent   to   anybody's   mind   an 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  25 

encyclopaedic  or  well-rounded  education,  although  we 
still  gravely  make  men  bachelors  and  masters  of  them, 
while  few  of  us  can  even  remember  their  seven  names. 
Liberal  study  has  now  come  to  mean  whatever  is  approved 
by  any  college  authorities  as  proper  study  for  their  stu- 
dents, in  short,  whatever  has  the  sanction  of  those  who 
happen  to  be  in  power,  the  beati  possiclentes.  Our  college 
authorities  would  not  let  it  be  said  that  any  one  of  our 
three  hundred  and  thirteen  courses  of  study,  from  the  high- 
est in  Metaphysics  or  the  purest  in  Mathematics  to  the 
most  elementary  in  French  or  German,  is  not  liberal  study  ; 
and  it  would  be  hard  to  draw  any  consistent  line  among 
them  which  would  be  in  harmony  with  modern  usage. 

In  Aristotle  we  find  the  first  distinct  statement  of 
the  ancient  doctrine  of  liberal  study  and  liberal  knowl- 
edge, that  they  are  study  and  knowledge  which  are 
"  fit  for  freemen."  This  definition  itself  is  of  no  use 
to  us ;  for  we  have  only  free-born  persons  to  deal  with, 
and  what  is  not  fit  for  freemen  now  is  not  fit  for  anybody. 
But  Aristotle  carries  us  further  back  than  this,  and 
lands  us  in  an  intelligible  distinction  at  last.  He  says 
it  is  most  unfitted  to  high-souled  and  free-born  men  to 
be  always  looking  for  what  is  useful  in  education.  What 
we  teach  may  be  useful,  but  usefulness  is  a  secondary 
not  a  primary  consideration.  The  branches  commonly 
taught  Greek  youth,  he  says,  are  letters,  gymnastics,  and 
music,  to  which  some  add  drawing.  Letters  may  be  useful 
as  they  help  in  housekeeping  and  business  ;  but  they  are 
studied  chiefly  because  they   open   to   us   wide   fields  of 


26  THE   PRESENT    AND    FUTUllE 

higher  learning.  Drawing  is  studied,  not  that  we  may 
avoid  being  cheated  in  buying  and  selling  goods,  but  that 
we  may  understand  works  of  art  and  have  a  scientific 
knowledge  of  beauty  in  the  human  form.  Music  he 
specially  praises,  because  it  can  never  he  of  any  practical 
use,  but  is  chiefly  an  adornment  of  leisure.  By  leisure 
he  does  not  mean  idleness,  nor  idleness  varied  by  occa- 
sional literary  diversion ;  but  freedom  from  mechanical 
work  that  we  may  devote  the  mind  to  higher  studies. 
We  see  this  when  he  says  that  only  a  man  of  leisure 
can  be  a  student  of  the  highest  philosophy.  He  promises 
hereafter  to  describe  an  education  which  we  should  give 
our  sons  "  not  as  being  useful  or  necessary,  but  as  liberal 
and  beautiful "  ;  but  this  "  hereafter  "  is  one  of  the  dis- 
appointments to  which  we  are  doomed  by  the  mutilated 
text  of  Aristotle's  Politics.  He  gives  us  an  interesting 
hint,  however,  of  what  other  people  thought,  which 
shows  us  that  his  day  was  not  so  very  different  from 
our  day  as  we  are  apt  to  think.     He  says :  — 

"It  is  evident  that  we  must  have  a  universal  system 
of  education  prescribed  by  law.  For  now  there  is  no 
agreement  on  either  the  subjects  or  the  manner  of  educa- 
tion. All  are  not  agreed  on  what  the  young  shall  study 
either  to  teach  them  virtue  or  to  secure  the  highest 
life;  nor  is  it  settled  whether  education  shall  aim  to 
cultivate  the  intellect  or  to  establish  the  moral  character. 
And  if  we  look  at  the  actual  education  of  our  own  day, 
we  are  only  the  more  perplexed.  Nobody  seems  to  know 
whether  youth  are  to  be  trained  in  what  will  be  useful 


OF   HARVAKD   COLLEGE.  27 

in  getting  a  living,  or  in  what  tends  to  promote  virtue, 
or  in  the  higher  studies  ;  all  three  of  these  views  have 
their  advocates.  Further,  there  is  no  agreement  about 
the  studies  which  promote  virtue  ;  for  all  do  not  mean 
the  same  thing  by  the  virtue  which  they  honor,  so  that 
naturally  they  cannot  agree  on  the  best  way  to  train  youth 
to  be  virtuous." 

It  is  evident  that  Aristotle  had  little  faith  in  the  school- 
master of  his  day !  It  is  evident  also  that  he  associated 
liberal  study  with  study  which  is  not  useful  or  which  is  not 
pursued  because  it  is  useful,  and  that  he  would  have 
agreed  with  Mr.  Lowell's  idea  of  a  university,  that  it  is  "'  a 
place  where  nothing  useful  is  taught."  But  Aristotle  took 
much  greater  interest  in  another  distinction  of  studies, 
which  goes  deeper  into  their  real  nature  and  was  probably 
always  in  his  mind  wlien  he  talked  of  liberal  learning. 
This  is  his  distinction  of  free  and  slavish  studies,  those 
which  are  in  themselves  free  or  slavish,  and  not  merely  fit 
for  freemen  or  for  slaves.  As  we  call  a  man  a  freeman,  he 
says,  when  he  exists  for  himself  and  not  for  another,  so  is 
a  science  free  which  exists  purely  for  itself  and  is  not  the 
handmaid  of  any  other.  The  only  strictly  free  study  he 
calls  his  own  science  of  Philosophy,  which  is  the  study  of 
principles  and  causes,  from  the  knowledge  of  which  all 
other  knowledge  springs ;  this  is  a  science  which  none  of 
the  mere  servile  sciences  can  dare  to  contradict.  Others 
are  free  or  slavish  according-  to  the  motives  with  which 
they  are  pursued.  We  must  always  keep  in  mind  (he  tells 
us)  the  difference  between  free  and  servile  work ;  for  what 


28  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

it  is  not  servile  to  do  for  ourselves  or  our  family  and 
friends,  it  may  be  servile  to  do  for  strangers.  All  work  is 
servile,  he  distinctly  says,  which  is  done  for  pay,  for  this 
robs  the  mind  of  its  leisure  and  humiliates  it.  A  study, 
therefore,  which  is  free  and  liberal  if  it  is  pursued  to  culti- 
vate the  student's  mind,  he  would  call  slavish  and  illiberal 
if  it  is  to  be  used  in  the  service  of  others  for  a  reward. 
Here  we  have,  in  its  most  offensive  form,  the  old  philoso- 
pher's lordly  contempt  for  gaining  an  honest  living  by  the 
honest  work  of  hands  or  brains,  the  view  which  regards 
the  necessity  for  labor  as  a  primeval  curse.  It  is  the  doc- 
trine of  the  ignohility  of  toil,  from  which  few,  even  of  the 
best  Greeks,  could  free  themselves.  In  this  spirit  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  with  their  ample  fortunes,  taught  without 
price,  and  stigmatized  all  who  taught  for  a  fee  as  "hire- 
lings.'' This  Clime  of  being  "  hirelings  "  was  the  one  un- 
pardonable sin  of  the  much-abused  Sophists ;  and  we  often 
repeat  the  charge,  forgetting  its  honorable  foundation. 
On  the  same  principle,  Socrates,  who  had  no  fortune  and 
would  neither  work  at  his  father's  trade  of  a  statuarj-  nor 
be  paid  for  his  own  teaching,  walked  proudly  through  the 
streets  of  Athens,  barefooted  and  half  clad,  and  left  Xan- 
thippe to  starve.  But  although  Aristotle's  distinction  of 
free  and  slavish  studies  is  one  which  we  can  onh'  repudiate 
with  indignation,  showing  us  (as  few  things  in  his  writings 
do)  how  much  the  world  has  outgrown  in  twenty-two  cen- 
turies, it  is  at  the  same  time,  if  rightly  applied,  one  of  the 
most  valuable  distinctions  for  us  to  observe  in  university 
education.     It  is  really  the  distinction  between  liberal  and 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  29 

professional  studies ;  only  in  applying  it  we  set  up  no 
claim  to  superior  dignity  for  the  liberal,  and  cast  no  asper- 
sion of  servility  on  the  professional.  One  class  is  as  repu- 
table and  as  dignified  as  the  other  ;  but  yet  they  should  be 
kept  distinct,  and  each  should  be  confined  to  its  proper 
limits. 

A  free  or  liberal  study,  therefore,  according  to  this  old- 
est and  most  fundamental  distinction,  is  any  study,  what- 
ever its  nature,  which  is  pursued  for  its  own  sake,  to 
gratify  the  mind's  thirst  for  principles  and  causes,  and  not 
because  it  is  to  be  made  useful.  It  is  whatever  the  human 
mind  seizes  and  assimilates  through  its  craving  for  real 
knowledge,  which  is  as  much  a  natural  craving  as  that  of 
the  body  for  food  and  drink.  It  is  by  satisfying  this  appe- 
tite, and  filling  the  mind  again  and  again  with  ever  fresh 
knowledge  that  the  mind  grows  and  matures ;  the  various 
stores  of  knowledge  pass  away  when  tliey  have  done  their 
work,  like  the  food  which  sustains  the  body;  but  the 
healthy  and  vigorous  mind  retains  wisdom  as  the  healthy 
body  retains  strength.  We  must  never  forget  that  the 
"  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,"  which  is  the  object  of  free 
or  liberal  study,  by  no  means  includes  everything  which 
can  be  knoivn.  The  acquaintance  which  we  make  with 
scattered  facts  is  mere  experience,  which  we  share  with 
the  brutes.  It  is  only  when  such  facts  are  combined  by 
reason  into  general  principles  that  they  constitute  true 
science  or  knowledge  (what  Aristotle  called  kiriaTrj^jirf). 
By  this  criterion,  and  by  this  alone,  must  we  test  the  claim 
of  every  study  which  demands  a  place  in  liberal  education. 


30  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

and  a  university  which  fails  to  apply  this  test  neglects  one 
of  its  highest  duties.  This  continual  supply  of  knowledge 
to  the  mind  must  be  made  under  proper  regulation  and 
wise  advice,  as  much  as  the  supply  of  food  to  the  body ; 
and  ill-regulated  absorption  of  knowledge,  or  of  bare  facts 
which  merely  lumber  the  mind  and  do  not  constitute 
knowledge,  gives  mental  dyspepsia  as  surely  as  ill-regulated 
eatinof  gives  a  disordered  stomach. 

We  must  remember  the  important  truth  that  studies 
which  are  liberal  if  pursued  with  one  motive  may  become 
professional  (Aristotle  would  say  "  slavish  ")  if  pursued 
with  another  motive.  And  the  reverse  is  equally  true, 
that  studies  which  are  commonly  professional  may  be 
pursued  as  liberal.  Every  study  ceases  to  be  liberal  and 
becomes  professional  when  it  is  undertaken  consciously 
as  preparation  for  one's  work  in  life  ;  while  precisely  the 
same  study,  when  it  is  made  part  of  a  general  education, 
to  gratify  thirst  for  knowledge,  is  liberal.  A  lawyer 
might  study  Theology,  or  a  theologian  might  study  Law, 
as  either  might  study  the  Classics  or  Physics ;  and  thus 
precisely  the  same  things  might  be  liberal  study  to  one 
and  professional  study  to  the  other.  So  any  man  of 
culture  who  does  not  think  of  professional  study,  a  man 
of  business  or  a  man  of  leisure  (in  Aristotle's  sense), 
might  pursue  liberal  studies  in  the  best  sense  in  Theology, 
Law,  or  Medicine.  Even  the  study  of  the  Classics,  which 
is  often  claimed  as  liberal  in  an  almost  exclusive  sense, 
may  become  professional   in  the  strictest  sense;  indeed. 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  31 

it  has  long  been  so  in  the  German  universities,  and  it  is 
becoming  more  and  more  so  in  our  Graduate  School. 

This  shows  that  the  distinction  of  professional  and 
liberal  study  must  not  be  pushed  too  far ;  but  the  dis- 
tinction is  none  the  less  real  because  the  line  which 
marks  it  is  delicate  and  sometimes  hard  to  trace.  And  the 
exceptions  only  prove  (i.e.  tesC)  the  rule.  For  example, 
there  is  no  question  that  all  the  studies  in  our  Divinity, 
Law,  and  Medical  Schools  are  strictly  professional  ;  and 
that  the  higher  courses  in  the  Graduate  School  (those  which 
give  the  School  its  distinctive  character)  are  professional. 
But  a  candidate  for  the  Master's  degree  may  take  a  course 
of  study  in  any  of  these  four  schools  with  no  professional 
intention;  indeed,  if  he  takes  studies  in  any  of  the  lirst 
three,  he  must  declare  that  he  does  not  intend  to  offer 
them  hereafter  for  a  professional  degree.  Such  studies 
become  purely  liberal  for  those  who  take  them  in  this 
spirit.  Even  a  professional  student  may  study  some 
subjects  which  bear  on  his  profession  with  mixed  motives ; 
and  every  enthusiastic  scholar  will  follow  many  lines  of 
thought,  even  in  his  professional  work,  "far  beyond  the 
limits  of  strictly  professional  needs.  This  point  is  illus- 
trated by  a  wise  provision  of  our  Graduate  School,  -which 
comes  from  its  close  connection  with  the  College  and  its 
origin  in  the  extension  of  college  studies.  Its  courses 
are  of  two  classes,  those  intended  "primarily  for  Grad- 
uates "  and  those  intended  "  for  Graduates  and  Under- 
graduates." The  former  are  for  the  most  part  strictly 
professional ;    the    latter   are    equally   adapted    to    three 


32  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

classes  of  students,  —  first,  to  those  whose  previous  study 
has  not  fitted  them  to  take  tlie  higher  courses  at  once, 
but  who  still  aim  at  these  with  professional  intentions  ; 
secondly,  to  those  who  make  them  a  part  of  a  general 
course  of  study  for  the  Master's  degree  (for  which  a  year's 
general  or  sj)ecial  study  is  required)  ;  and  thirdly,  for 
more  advanced  undergraduates  who  are  specially  devoted 
to  any  department.  This  elasticity  in  the  studies  of  the 
Graduate  School  adapts  it  to  the  wants  of  students  who 
come  to  it  with  every  variety  of  preparation  for  their 
work;  and  while  it  will  always  be  valuable,  it  is  at 
present  indispensable. 

This  brings  me  back  to  the  point  from  which  I  made 
this  long  digression.  I  have  said  that  we  can  never 
allow  the  old  College  to  drop  out  between  the  lower 
schools  and  the  professional  schools  unless  we  are  willing 
to  see  the  university  become  wholly  a  place  for  profes- 
sional study  and  cease  to  be  a  home  of  liberal  culture. 
I  have  shown  that  the  Graduate  School  fills  an  entirely 
new  place  of  her  own.  She  can  never  take  upon  herself 
any  of  the  duties  of  the  College  ;  and  this  must  still 
remain  the  appointed  representative  and  custodian  of 
X^urely  liberal  studies  in  the  university.  The  question 
is :  Shall  she  give  up  this  sacred  trust,  which  was  con- 
fided to  her  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
and  which  through  all  her  changing  fortunes  she  has 
faithfully  kept  ? 

If  this  should  ever  be  seriously  proposed,  it  should  call 
forth   a   united  protest  from   the   sons    of    Harvard  and 


OF    HARVARD    COLLEGE.  33 

from  all  friends  of  sound  learning  throughout  the  land. 
Such  a  step  would  lead  us  into  one  of  the  greatest  evils 
of  German  education;  and  we  should  have  none  of  the 
safeguards  which  the  solid  connection  of  the  German 
schools  with  the  universities  and  of  both  with  a  strong- 
central  government  has  always  provided.  No  one  has 
a  greater  admiration  than  I  have  for  the  universities 
of  Germany.  If  the  service  which  they  have  rendered 
to  higher  education  were  struck  out  of  history,  the 
world  would  go  back  half  a  centur}^,  and  there  would 
now  be  feAv  problems  of  higher  scholarship  for  us  to  dis- 
cuss. And  yet,  if  I  could  bring  the  University  of  Berlin 
here  to  supplant  this  university,  and  if  our  schools 
were  ready  to  prepare  students  for  it,  I  should  refuse 
to  make  the  exchange,  provided  the  relation  between  the 
schools  and  the  university  were  to  become  what  they 
are  now  in  Germany.  My  reason  would  be,  that  tlie 
German  system  leaves  no  place  between  school  and  pro- 
fessional study  for  a  ]:)urely  liberal  education.  A  German 
passes  by  a  single  leap  from  the  life  of  a  school-boy  to 
that  of  a  man  who  is  (or  ought  to  be)  beginning  the 
serious  work  of  life.  He  knows  no  period  of  transition, 
such  as  is  open  to  the  English  and  American  youth, 
when  his  ship  is  loosed  from  shore  but  is  still  in  harbor, 
when  he  is  in  the  world  but  not  exactly  of  the  Avorld, 
when  he .  has  a  right  to  spend  his  time  in  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  the  great  heritage  which  has  been  bequeathed 
him  before  he  is  called  to  administer  it  and  improve 
it  for  his  successors,  when  he  can  quietly  explore  various 


.34  THE   PliESENT   AND   FUTURE 

lines  of  thought  and  decide  (if  he  can)  in  which  one 
he  can  do  the  best  service  for  himself  and  his  genera- 
tion, when  he  is,  in  short,  a  college  undergraduate. 
This  is  the  period  when  most  young  men  make  their 
closest  acquaintance  with  the  great  men,  the  great  deeds, 
and  the  great  thoughts,  which  have  made  this  world 
a  fit  abode  of  intelligent  beings  and  have  saved  it  from 
being  a  mere  "  cockpit  of  fighting  gladiators."  To  this 
habit  of  our  English  race  of  taking  a  period  of  rest 
combined  with  most  active  work,  of  active  work  free 
from  the  responsibilities  of  real  life,  between  boyhood 
and  manhood,  we  owe  much  that  gives  the  English  and 
American  college-bred  man  his  distinct  character,  which 
often  makes  him  a  more  cultivated  man  than  one  of  a 
different  stamp  with  perhaps  far  greater  learning.  There 
is  nothing,  it  seems  to  me,  to  which  our  educated  men 
should  cling  with  closer  tenacity,  nothing  which  they 
should  guard  with  more  jealous  care,  than  this  period 
of  free  academic  study,  when  a  youth  is  to  seek  learning 
for  the  learning's  own  sake,  and  not  for  its  ulterior  uses, 
when  he  is  to  strive  to  make  himself  a  man  before  he 
is  called  on  to  act  as  a  man  in  the  struggle  of  life. 

But  some,  who  admit  the  truth  of  all  this,  still  anxiously 
ask :  Will  there  be  time  found,  in  all  the  rush  and  hurry 
of  our  American  life,  for  this  luxury  of  academic  study? 
When  Harvard  University  is  fully  equipped  for  all  pro- 
fessional work,  when  the  Graduate  School  is  developed 
into  a  Department  of  the  Arts  and  Sciences,  when  the 
High  Schools  have  advanced  (as  we  hope  they  will)  with 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  35 

equal  pace,  will  there  still  be  room  left  between  the  pre- 
paratory and  the  professional  schools  for  this  course  of 
purely  liberal  study?  Unless  our  successors  here  are 
fatally  blinded  to  the  best  interests  of  learning  througliout 
the  land,  room  for  this  will  be  most  sacredly  kept.  This 
is  a  matter  which  concerns  deeply  a  large  part  of  our 
cultivated  men.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  question  whether  our 
clergymen,  lawyers,  physicians,  and  merchants  are  to  be 
cut  off  from  a  college  education,  and  sent  directly  from 
the  benches  of  a  school  to  their  professional  study  or  their 
business.  None  of  these  classes  can  have  any  interest  in 
the  Graduate  School :  their  only  hope  of  higher  education  is 
in  the  old  College.  Imagine  for  a  moment  what  it  would 
be  to  us,  if  none  of  our  present  clergymen,  lawyers,  physi- 
cians, and  merchants  were  college-bred  men !  The  very 
suggestion  threatens  our  whole  community  with  a  calam- 
ity which  would  be  appalling  if  the  danger  were  serious. 
For  myself,  T  have  not  the  least  fear  of  the  answer  which 
the  coming  generation  will  give  to  this  question  if  it  is 
ever  asked.  The  amount  of  time  which  will  ultimately 
be  given  to  this  course  of  general  education  may  change, 
as  standards  of  scholarship  advance  both  in  school  and  in 
college ;  but  I  do  not  think  tliat  any  changes  will  ever 
allow  the  standard  of  scholarship  of  the  Bachelor's  degree 
to  be  lowered^  whatever  may  be  the  time  required  for 
earning  it.  For  myself,  I  hope  the  standard  of  this 
degree  may  in  time  be  advanced  by  at  least  a  year,  while 
the  age  of  taking  it  may  be  lowered  by  at  least  a  year. 
I  am  perfectly  aware  that  this  will  seem  Quixotic  to  many 


36  THE   PRESENT    AND    FUTURE 

who  acquiesce  too  contentedly  in  our  present  condition. 
But  it  would  be  only  to  expect  from  American  young 
men  what  is  not  only  expected  but  obtained  from  young 
men  in  every  other  country  with  which  we  should  not 
deem  it  insulting  to  be  compared  in  ability  or  in  quickness  of 
intellect.  It  is  a  notorious  and  discreditable  fact,  but  still 
a  fact  which  needs  to  be  proclaimed  afresh  even  to  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa,  that  our  students  now  come  to  college 
at  the  age  of  nineteen  with  no  more  knowledge  than  an 
English,  French,  German,  or  Swiss  boy  has  at  seventeen, 
and  —  what  is  more  discreditable  still  —  with  no  more 
than  our  own  New  England  boy  had  at  seventeen  fifty  or 
sixty  years  ago.  One  of  the  greatest  of  the  many  great 
services  which  the  President  of  the  University  has  ren- 
dered to  the  cause  of  education  is  the  complete  demon- 
stration which  he  has  given,  not  only  of  these  facts,  but 
also  of  their  causes.  No  one  can  examine  the  tables  in 
which  President  Eliot  has  compared  in  parallel  columns 
the  studies  of  a  French  Lycee  and  a  Boston  public  school, 
without  seeing  at  once  that  the  unpleasant  truth  is  rather 
depreciated  than  exaggerated.  The  French  boy  of  fifteen 
is  pursuing  the  same  studies  with  our  boys  of  seventeen 
or  eighteen.  It  is  obvious  that  by  bad  management  some- 
u'Jiere  the  American  boy  is  defrauded  of  at  least  two  years 
of  his  time  at  school.  Though  the  amount  of  the  loss  is 
more  conspicuous  when  we  come  to  the  higher  schools, 
the  real  waste  of  time  seems  to  be  effected  chiefly  in 
schools  of  the  lower  grades,  where  the  skill  sometimes 
shown  in  spreading  the  elements  of  learning  thin  would 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  37 

be  laughable  were  it  not  pathetic.  The  time  often  wasted 
on  such  matters  as  percentage,  interest,  and  compound 
numbers  is  simply  incredible.  I  cannot  go  into  details 
here ;  but  I  will  mention  that  in  the  time  which  our  boy 
generally  gives  to  Arithmetic  alone  a  French  boy  learns 
Arithmetic,  Plane  Geometry,  and  Algebra.  The  greater 
part  of  this  loss  is  not  to  be  charged  to  bad  teaching.  If 
it  were,  the  remedy  would  be  comparatively  simple.  A 
far  greater  share  is  due  to  bad  systems,  which  are  imposed 
on  the  teachers  by  standing  rules,  and  often  compel  a 
good  teacher  to  waste  nearly  as  much  time  as  a  poor  one. 
The  pernicious  custom  of  keeping  brighter  pupils  back 
until  the  dull  and  the  lazy  can  be  expected  to  reach  a 
given  point  is  almost  enough  to  account  for  the  whole 
trouble.  Classes  in  our  schools  often  have  an  amount  of 
work  given  them  for  a  year  whicli  any  bright  boy  or  girl 
can  do  in  three  months,  while  there  is  no  regular  provision 
by  which  those  who  can  do  it  in  less  time  shall  as  a  matter 
of  course  go  on  to  other  work.  Another  evil,  one  peculiar 
to  this  country,  but  a  most  unnecessary  one,  is  the  con- 
stant interruption  of  study  by  calls  of  society  and  by  a 
thousand  other  distractions  which  in  other  countries  would 
never  be  allowed  to  break  in  upon  study  in  school.  Here 
study  is  charged  with  all  sorts  of  harm  of  which  it  is 
wholly  innocent ;  and  hours  of  school  time  are  shortened 
and  vacations  are  lengthened,  under  the  delusion  that  pupils 
are  overworked  who  have  no  conception  of  what  real 
work  means.  Whatever  may  be  the  causes,  the  appalling- 
fact  remains,  that  our  pupils,  when  ■  they  leave  school,  are 

.579.517 


38  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

two  years  heliind  those  of  the  same  aye  in  other  countries. 
Dr.  Fowler  tells  us  in  the  last  Harvard  Monthly  that 
fifteen  years  ago  he  left  a  class  in  a  German  gymnasium 
whose  average  age  was  under  sixteen,  and  came  here  fully 
prepared  to  enter  our  Freshman  class,  whose  average  age 
was  much  over  eighteen.  Nobody  has  been  able  to  show 
any  gain  by  which  our  boys  and  girls  make  up  for  this 
backwardness.  Certainly  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  superior 
health  and  strength.  And  would  anybody  venture  to  say 
that  our  children  are  mentally  inferior  to  the  others  ? 

I  have  said  that  we  are  behind  even  our  own  record  of 
fifty  or  sixty  years  ago.  When  Freshmen  entered  Harvard 
College  easily  at  fifteen  and  sixteen,  the  requirements  for 
admission  were  hardly  more  than  a  year  behind  the  pres- 
ent demands.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  for  example,  that 
Exeter  Academy  could  easily  have  sent  us  boys  of  sixteen 
and  seventeen  then  with  as  great  an  amount  of  prepara- 
tion as  we  now  require  from  those  of  nineteen.  Dr.  Pea- 
body,  who  took  his  Bachelor's  degree  here  at  fifteen  would 
smile  at  the  suggestion  of  a  doubt  on  this  point.  But 
what  do  we  find  at  Exeter  now  ?  Boys  enter  the  academy 
now  older  than  they  once  left  it  for  college ;  and  at  this 
age  (sixteen  or  seventeen)  they  are  required  merely  to 
have  "some  knowledge  of  Common  School  Arithmetic, 
writing,  spelling,  and  of  the  elements  of  English  Gram- 
mar." There  is  the  whole  melancholy"  story,  in  a  very 
small  nutshell.  I  select  Exeter  as  an  example,  not  by  way 
of  censure,  but  honoris  causa.  We  are  sure  that  she  does 
her  best  with  the  material  which  comes  to  her  from  the 


OF    HARVARD   COLLEGE.  39 

lower  schools.  And  this  is  the  best  which  one  of  the 
oldest  and  most  ambitious  New  England  academies  can 
now  demand  from  boys  of  sixteen  and  seventeen,  hardly 
as  much  as  she  could  once  have  demanded  and  obtained 
from  boj^s  of  twelve  and  thirteen. 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  this  concerns  college  education 
alone,  though  it  fetters  the  scholarship  of  every  college  in 
the  land.  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  bringing  a  small 
minority  of  our  youth  to  college  two  years  earlier ;  it  is  a 
question  of  the  deepest  interest  to  every  school-boy  and 
school-girl  among  us.  Saving  these  two  lost  years  means 
adding  two  years  to  the  time  which  each  of  the  pupils  in 
our  schools  can  give  to  the  work  of  education,  work  which 
is  sorely  needed  to  fit  them  for  the  responsibilities  of  citi- 
zens in  this  growing  democracy.  Saving  these  two  years 
means  for  every  thousand  children  in  our  schools  the  sav- 
ing of  two  thousand  years  of  human  life ;  it  means  the 
rescue,  for  the  world's  service,  of  an  aggregate  of  time 
greater  than  that  from  the  Christian  era  to  the  present 
day.  And  there  are  now  more  than  ten  thousand  chil- 
dren in  the  schools  of  Cambridge  alone. 

Can  this  country  afford  to  make  this  sacrifice  of  precious 
time  any  longer?  With  all  the  expense  which  we  so 
willingly  lavish  on  our  public  schools,  in  sight  of  the 
palaces  of  brick  and  stone  which  we  erect  in  the  cause  of 
free  education,  are  we  content  to  see  the  education  of 
which  these  palaces  are  the  home  thus  lagging  behind  that 
of  less  favored  nations  ?  Would  it  not  be  wise  economy 
to  transfer  some  of  the  expenditure  from  the  outside  to  the 


40  THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE 

inside  of  our  costly  school-houses?  And,  in  the  face  of  all 
this,  can  we  listen  with  patience  to  protestations  that  we 
have  no  time  to  give  to  liberal  culture  in  college,  and  that 
our  youth  must  save  every  precious  moment  by  rushing 
directly  from  school  to  the  study  of  a  profession  ?  I  will 
not  ask  this  audience  whether  this  wicked  waste  is  to  go 
on.  It  can  be  stopped,  and  it  will  be  stopped.  Tlie  reform 
has  even  now  passed  the  theoretical  stage,  and  able  and 
earnest  teachers  are  proving  by  their  work  that  the  lost 
time  can  be  saved,  and  saved  to  the  great  advantage  of 
the  work  itself.  A  united  effort  of  the  friends  of  learn- 
ing is  all  that  is  needed  to  ensure  success.  If  everybody 
who  is  interested  in  either  school  or  college  education,  if 
every  member  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  for  example,  would 
urge  the  crying  need  for  this  reform  on  every  school  com- 
mittee which  he  can  influence,  the  abuse  would  be  swept 
away  and  the  victory  would  be  won. 

I  think  we  can  safely  predict  that  another  quarter  of  a 
century  will  find  Harvard  holding  an  honorable  position 
among  a  goodly  number  of  American  universities,  which 
will  supply  our  students  at  home  with  the  higher  learning 
for  which  they  now  resort  by  hundreds  to  the  universities 
of  Germany.  She  will  be  fully  equipped  for  the  best  work 
in  every  department,  in  Theology,  in  Law,  in  Medicine, 
and  in  the  Arts  and  Sciences.  I  think  we  may  be  sure 
that  she  will  always  represent  the  foremost  progress  of 
science  and  will  always  welcome  the  boldest  speculation 
on  every  subject.  No  party  nor  sect  will  control  her 
teaching,  to  cause  either  the  promulgation  of  unscientific 


OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE.  41 

dogmas  or  the  supjiression  of  scientific  truth.  I  need 
hardly  say  here  that  no  exception  will  be  made  in  this 
respect  for  Philosophy,  Political  Science,  or  even  Theol- 
ogy. Public  opinion  is  fast  settling  this  matter  beyond 
the  reach  of  controversy.  Parties  and  sects  will  of  course 
preach  their  own  doctrines  and  creeds  then  in  their  own 
schools,  as  they  do  now ;  but  the  true  university  can  rec- 
ognize only  the  free  and  unbiassed  search  for  truth  for 
the  truth's  sake.  Happily  we  have  no  antiquated  statutes 
or  traditions  to  sweep  away  to  prej)are  us  for  the  coming 
age.  Our  ancient  motto  Veritas  stands  always  over  our 
gates,  and  we  interpret  it  by  the  principle  of  freedom, 
"  Prove  all  things :  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good." 

We  have  the  assurance  of  the  past  that  this  university 
will  never  be  hampered  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  by 
want  of  means.  European  universities  boast  of  the  im- 
perial and  national  governments  which  sup^^ort  them,  and 
support  them  with  noble  liberality ;  but  the  bounty  of 
emjDcrors  and  princes,  and  even  of  republics,  is  precarious, 
and  may  fail  with  political  changes.  Harvard  has  a  more 
than  imperial  treasury  in  the  love  and  respect  of  her  sons 
and  in  the  confidence  of  the  community. 

Finally,  I  believe  that  the  sure  and  solid  foundation  of 
the  whole  university  will  be  in  the  future,  as  it  has  been 
in  the  past,  the  old  Harvard  College,  whom  we  all  love  as 
dutiful  children,  and  who  has  always  been  a  loving  mother 
to  us.  If  her  fostering  care  ever  seems  to  fail,  it  is  the 
fault  of  her  ministers,  not  her  own.  Like  a  queen,  she 
can  do  no  wrong.     She  did  her  best  for  her  sons  when  her 


42    THE  PRESENT  AND  FUTUKK  OF  HAKVAllI)  COLLEGE. 

means  were  scanty;  she  will  still  do  her  best  for  them  in 
her  days  of  prosperity.  She  will  never  abandon  to  the 
care  of  strangers  those  whose  fathers  she  has  loved  and 
cherished  as  her  children :  her  children  will  trust  the  nur- 
ture of  their  sons  to  no  Alma  Mater  but  their  own. 


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